There are few things that annoy me more than being mistakenly called English. It's understandable, though: I don't have a Welsh accent, and after living in England for eight years, even my slight Welsh twang is dying out, unless I have a few drinks. But I was still a little surprised when I was stood on the platform at Nunhead station, killing time by catching up on phone calls, speaking yn Gymraeg (in Welsh) when a man stood nearby glared angrily at me. He then turned to his friend as I finished chatting, gestured towards me and said loudly: "Those fucking Poles are why no one can get British jobs." His friend looked embarrassed and started staring at the floor as I calmly explained I was Welsh. Mentioning the altercation on Twitter, a number of people reported similar scenarios of baffled strangers mistaking Welsh for other languages.

I could do as he said and go back to where I came from. Newport's only 140 miles away, but unfortunately for my travelling companion, it is still in Britain. Far from being a "dead language", Welsh fluency is increasing very quickly in Newport and beyond, thanks to the Welsh assembly (or Senedd, if we're going to eschew English) making Welsh compulsory up to GCSE level.

There are a few wonderful, practical uses of Welsh: train announcements are often made in Welsh first at train stations, so platform changes usually see Welsh speakers heading for the stairs first, leaving poor English speakers jostling solemnly for seats on packed trains. And being able to natter in a language your parents can't speak is great fun when you're a kid, or a mischievous adult. More than 600,000 people speak Welsh to varying degrees of fluency, and on average 100,000 tune into S4C's Welsh-language soap opera Pobol Y Cwm (People of the Valley).

But it's also an increasingly important part of our national identity, and it's as much a generational issue as it is a national one. Pundits proclaiming that Welsh is a dead language often grew up before Welsh was re-embraced, and the language was so sidelined that Plaid Cymru MP Gwynfor Evans threatened to go on hunger strike unless a Welsh-language channel was provided. Children are learning Welsh from a young age and are exposed to the language constantly, thanks to the bilingual signage all over the country.

Youth culture is embracing Welsh language, too, especially in music: Cate le Bon, Euros Childs and Gruff Rhys perform in Welsh and English, and the sadly disbanded Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Super Furry Animals also embraced the language. Mwng by Super Furry Animals reached number 11 in the UK charts, thanks to John Peel's persistent promotion of the band, showing the language isn't too terrifying to English-speaking audiences. Famously, Alan McGee spoke to the band after a gig, and said he'd like to sign them if they'd sing more songs in English. Gruff Rhys drily pointed out all songs that evening had been in English. Perhaps soon my affronted train companion will, with increased exposure, be able to recognise Welsh when he hears it.